


Red Lights

by JamesJohnEye



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 09:03:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1299250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamesJohnEye/pseuds/JamesJohnEye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things progress of course. It’s not a kiss on the cheek anymore these days, but you don’t really mind. They are nicer than most of the guys at college.<br/>And sometimes you don’t take the money.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Lights

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first CM fanfic, I would love to hear what you think! Please don't forget to leave a comment, it would make my day. If you spot a mistake, please let me know.
> 
> \- James.

 

* * *

 

 

You don’t do it for the money.

But one day your mom died and many days later your dad decided that you weren’t enough to stay alive for.

This is a small town and everyone is very sorry. First, you get a job at a diner and then at the gas station. Everyone greets you by your first name, you know every-ones order and amount of gas they want.

One day, you wake up and decide that this isn’t worth it. Making just enough money to stay exactly where you are.

They don’t deserve it but you leave without saying anything. There’s no note left at the diner, no message for the gas station.

People stop looking for you after a week. You’re no-one’s child. Another girl takes your shifts at the diner. A boy fills up the cars now. Nothing really changes in small towns, after all.

You hitch-hike for two weeks until your destination changes from ‘I don’t care’ to ‘left here please’.

The capital is big enough to scare you and small enough for the baristas to learn your name.

There’s a beautiful building just down the block. Girls and boys go in every day and come out a little bit smarter. One day, you go in too.

As it turns out, you’re pretty clever. There’s a scholarship and a college and then classes and books and bills and everything else that makes life both more fun and more complicated.

But as it turns out, filling up people’s gas tanks and remembering that they don’t like pickles on their burgers wasn’t enough to pay for your degree. There are books you need, busses you need to catch, groceries to make a decent dinner. Your mom left you something, but your dad drank it secretly so really, there’s nothing left.

First, you get a job at the bookstore, but it’s not enough, barely covering your fastfood-dinners. There’s a girl down your corridor who says she knows a guy who might be able to help. He sells lots of girls like you.

You say you’re not that kind of girl, but he claims that not everyone is after that kind of entertainment, though most are. It’s easy money, he tells you. And you can say no, or stop, at any moment. He’s got gentlemen, after all, not some sleazy guys from the streets. Think about it, he says with an easy smile, knowing he’s made up your mind already.

You swallow your pride in the end because you can’t go back to that small town. You won’t.

You tell yourself there’s nothing wrong with it. And there isn’t. But you won’t tell people what kind of job you have, or who those friends of yours really are because, well, they wouldn’t understand that you’re not doing it for the money.

You do it because you want to graduate and move on, getting further away from that small town where everyone’s sorry with every test you pass.

You do it because they _are_ gentlemen, caring and considerate. And everyone gets lonely, once in a while.

The first time you’re armed with a knife and pepper spray and you meet in a public place where you tell the bartender that your friend might get violent and that he should call the cops when you wink at him from across the bar.

You don’t wink. And you don’t pepper spray, or knife the guy.

He buys you a non-alcoholic drink. He asks about your studies and seems interested in what you stutter back. Then, when it’s time to leave, he kisses your cheek and walks out.

Easy money.

Things progress of course. It’s not a kiss on the cheek anymore these days, but you don’t really mind. They are nicer than most of the guys at college.

And sometimes you don’t take the money.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Morgan takes you out. The bar is filled with smoke, barely pierced by the strange artificial lights. He pays for the drinks, holds the door open for you, tells you to hurry up when you visit the bathroom.

You flirt and laugh and dance. Bodies grinding together, hands wandering, nails scraping. His mouth is sinfully hot and his teeth sharp when he nips at your lower lip. He takes a shot off your body, pupils dilating until they’re blown wide and you lick his neck, all the way to his ear. What you whisper doesn’t matter. Anything would set him off now, with those hands on your hips and that chest against yours.

And then he’s done being mister nice guy.

Just like that.

 

He throws you on the bed, rips the shirt you were wearing, tears your panties too. It’s wild and brutal. He dominates, pinning you down easily. Some nights you plead for him to take it slower, but you never say the safe word. He seems another person, all teeth and nails and muscles now, such a wild thing, really. It’s rough and over quick.

He falls asleep besides you.

You leave before he wakes up.

The money is on the counter.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Hotch gave you his key a long time ago. You slip in, past the study where he’s still working. You wait in the dark, sitting on his bed.

At first he doesn’t acknowledge you. He puts his gun in the safe, hides his credentials in the drawer.

When he does look at you, he’s undressed and crawling towards you. It’s greedy and needy. And when it’s over, he breathes someone elses name into your skin.

You don’t mind.

 

In the morning, he wakes you gently and tells you that you may use the shower first. When you come down he has made breakfast.

Jack, sitting at the kitchen table, says pancakes are his favorite but he knew you were visiting because dad made eggs and bacon instead. He asks whether you’ll walk him to school and you hold out your hand. Hotch tells you you don’t have to, that he has time, but Jack whines that you’re his favorite babysitter.

Hotch closes his eyes in embarrassment, a faint blush rising from his chest and neck to his cheeks and ears. You make a bad quip about Harlequin novels and hide your grin in the coffee cup.

When you leave Hotch gives you an apple and your money. In the doorway he tells you to be careful.

On the subway you realize that he gave you too much.

 

 

* * *

 

Reid lets you explore his apartment. He’s not a man of secrets. You go through his things, his books, his research, his photographs.

He sits on the couch, leafing through a book. Sometimes he answers your questions. Mostly, you don’t ask.

When it gets dark, you sit down beside him and peel the book from his cold hands.

Those hands are on you a moment later, getting warmer with every caress. With him it’s slow and fun. Filled with kisses and smiles.

There’s classical music in the background, violins guide his tongue, trialing over your stomach, up and up or down, down, down. When the CD ends, he scoops you up to carry you to his bed. He’s gotten much stronger over the years and doesn’t drop you half-way anymore.

 

In the morning, he kisses your forehead before grabbing his messengers bag and dashing towards the door. He tells you to just pull the door closed behind you when you leave.

You sleep until noon. You drink his coffee, eat his food, clean his dishes, steal a book you will return when you’ve finished it.

You pull the door closed behind you.

 

The money always appears in your wallet the next morning. He’s a magician, after all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rossi cooks you dinner. He tells you stories about his glory days and you tell him how school was. It makes him feel old but he listens anyway. When you’ve cleaned up, he helps you with your statistics homework and you read the latest section of his book, circling spelling errors with your high-lighter.

He goes to bed early. You follow him up the grand staircase. There’s a toothbrush just for you.

He tastes like mint when you kiss. His hand on you hip, not pushing or pulling but just there, and his eyes are closed. He’s a good kisser. All that practice, he jokes before pulling a cord and killing the main light.

There’s a small lamp on your nightstand. You switch it on. In the dim light, you read your college books, highlighting certain phrases and making notes in the margins.

In the dark, he watches you until he falls asleep. A smile gracing his face.

 

In the morning, he drives you to campus. Your friends are standing just there, turning to greet you, and he pretends to be someone you’ve lost a long time ago.

‘Be good,’ he says, ‘work hard.’

‘Come here,’ you murmur before kissing him again.

‘I said be _good_ ,’ he laughs, shooing you out of his car.

Through the open window, he kisses you one more time. Just because he may.

He hasn’t paid in two years, but somehow your student debt doesn’t seem as high as it ought to be.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Garcia pushes you into a chair and gets busy in the kitchen. You fold your arms around one of her fuzzy cushions and watch how she whips up cupcakes and cookies.

All the while she talks. About work, about her mum and stepdad, about her counseling group and her co-workers. She tells you about the unsubs, the families left behind, the troubles of her team.

You don’t want to hear it, none of it. The MO, the pictures, the victimology, it makes you sick just thinking about it. The smell of nearly-burned chocolate makes you gag, but you push your face in the cushion and pretend to listen anyway.

 

When she’s done cooking, she moves you to the couch where you’re finally allowed to sample. You eat cookies and drink tea while she bustles around the apartment. Sometimes you help her clean, but mostly you just sit there, listening.

Half-way through she sits down next to you and realizes that she’s paying you to be her friend. She cries and cries and cries and you just drink your tea.

The money is hidden in a little pink pouch which hangs next to the door, near her keys. You don’t feel bad when you take it, this is your job after all. It’s not your fault and she doesn’t need the money as desperately as you do.

 

But when you spot a second-hand cookbook on sale in your campus-bookstore, you use the little savings you have to get it. You wrap it in a plastic bag and apologize for the state of it and the lack of gift-paper.

She loves it anyway.

 


End file.
